Today we welcome a post by Chloe Waryan as part of our collaboration with Hack Library School . Chloe Waryanis a MLIS candidate at the University of Iowa. She entered into the library field by way of urban public libraries, as a patron, a volunteer, and eventually an employee. She now works as a technical editor for an academic journal. Chloe’s professional interests include access, preservation, and outreach.

I am not sure if any time is “the best time” to choose to go to graduate school for library and information science, but 2016 was definitely an interesting choice. Growing up, I knew very few professionals with college degrees, so I was not prepared for the relative poverty that most graduate students live in today. Like many of my classmates, paying for library school is constantly on my mind, as it is the biggest purchase I’ve ever made. There is an immense privilege attached to going to college, yet it comes with an extreme price tag. Despite our oversharing culture, high tuition has become the new normal and it is hardly ever discussed. It’s a confusing time. Is it hypocritical for academics to complain about high tuition? Can students be against degree inflation while still being supportive of the education we are receiving? The hardest part of starting library school last year wasn’t the coursework or the final exams. It was attempting to wrestle with the value and the values of my soon-to-be-obtained MLIS.

We’ve all heard the phrase: “the college degree is becoming the new high school diploma!” This means that despite the high tuition, the college students today are not the elite. Students from all economic classes are awarded the great opportunity to attend college, with help from scholarships and loans. According to the 2010 study from the Department of Education, an estimated 50% of all college students currently enrolled are first generation college students (including myself), who are statistically at a greater risk for dropping out due to many factors, one being imposter syndrome.

Have you ever hesitated to apply for a job because you think you’re not qualified? That is imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome has the potential to follow students not only through their bachelor’s programs, but their graduate programs and job search. According to many postings on the ALAJoblist, one must have an MLIS to become an academic librarian. Often time, a second master’s degree or Ph.D. is preferred. Amidst the ever-changing environment of higher education, we are no longer advocating towards lifelong learning as “a key to longer, healthier, more satisfying and productive lives,” (Education and Continuous Learning, ALA) but rather, pushing “lifelong learning to stay employed,” (Kim, 2). If degree inflation continues in this rate, a Ph.D. will be required to hold a librarian position. If that becomes the case, who will we be excluding?

I admire librarians who have decades of library experience but no college degree. When I graduate, they will still be far more experienced than I. They are the toughest, smartest, kindest professionals, and I consider them pioneers in their field. My hero librarians have gained their expertise by working in a professional environment, taking classes as non-degree seeking students, critically thinking on their own, and of course, through reading books. They do not see gaining a library job as an endgame, but rather as an opportunity to potentially learn what they were not afforded to learn in college. If they applied for another job either laterally or higher up, they would not get the position because of their lack of formal education. Potential employers would be missing out on their creativity, productivity, and entrepreneurial spirit. I have also known librarians who have Ph.D.s who have seem to forgotten the core values of librarianship. We are working with two different sets of standards: one set is formal education and one set is experience. Hiring committees should be able to reflect in their postings that both sets have merit. If anyone can compromise between two different sets of standards, a librarian can.

By putting a college degree on a pedestal, we exclude others who have chosen not to get or who are barred from getting the education with which we are privileged. If degree inflation continues, I predict that the LIS field will include those who feel comfortable in an academic setting, thus excluding the first generation college students currently enrolled in America (which, as a reminder, is half of everyone currently enrolled in college). Why are we not hiring people who accurately represent the demographics of our school? I will add that this is not necessarily all our fault, as much of this comes from administration and union restraints, from the competitive job market and from our fear-driven economy. Theanxiety and fear we face as library professionals in America right now is overwhelming. We can only try to be more welcoming to those who offer unique perspectives.

To be clear, I do not think that the MLIS isn’t valuable. It is a huge accomplishment. Aside from luck, convenience and privilege, I work towards a master’s degree because I want a job that I enjoy, and I want to prepare myself for that job through a combination of schooling and work. However, I must admit that the thought of applying for a job as an academic library is incredibly intimidating. I have heard stories about the all-day interviews. I have been told to save a few thousand dollars to travel to interviews. I have also been told to brush up on my dining etiquette because the casual lunch “counts.” Even after overcoming the struggles of a first generation college student, I fear that I am unemployable. As academic librarians, you have a responsibility to your students and your applicants. It is your responsibility to show these new faces that they have unique perspectives needed in their respective fields, their institution is proud to be represented by them, continuing education is something to be admired and it is never a burden to ask for help. You also have a responsibility to yourself. Show that the journey doesn’t end with the completion of the degree. Welcome and learn from your coworkers. Despite the larger issues in America, patience and compassion towards everyone, no matter what socioeconomic background, can create a new era in which everyone will want to become librarians.

Thank you to ACRLog and Hack Library School for this opportunity.

References:

Cardoza, Kavitha. “First-Generation College Students Are Not Succeeding in College, and

I just returned from my annual family vacation in Colorado. Amidst the forest bathing and a slower daily pace, I always experience a deep dive into relationship building on these trips. Riding in a compact Fit for the eight hours it takes to get there, and living for a week in a different “home”, does test and stretch patience. The physicality of hiking and even adjusting to new altitudes requires a certain reckoning of oneself. This year we were battling swimmers ear in high altitude and an overall slack in physical fitness. Both required accepting limitations in ways we weren’t used to and spending a greater amount of time in quiet inactivity. With each year, however, I always discover new strengths and unique differences in myself, between fathering and mothering, wifery and husbandry, sibling to sibling, and among hikers who want to push on versus those who want to rest. 😉

This thinking on relationships helpfully segues my mind to the arrival of August and the start of a new school year. As the students return and faculty prepare course syllabi, my more isolated, internal, summertime work turns externally, patron-oriented. As my library is also discussing its strategic priorities for the next two years, words like collaboration, partnership, engagement, and development abound. In every practical discussion around seeing our own work in these priorities, the actionable path forward always points to relationship building. Just me? Perhaps. As one of my favorite quotes suggests, I have come to believe relationships are key to how we accomplish real goals.

I didn’t always think this way. I usually preferred fast and alone. Both personally and professionally, my default is still often internally-focused and analytical. One of the stories I tell about my path to librarianship — besides it being the only result of my junior high career test — is that in my first job as an elementary school music teacher, I was much more interested in discussion music theory than singing songs. Now, it’s true, I justifiably lacked the necessary accompanist skills. Moreover, I know preference for the analytical side to just about everything was to blame. “What a great match for librarianship!” I thought at the time, conceiving the profession as solely concerned with how things ought to be organized. Working in libraries quickly taught me that the most efficient and organized ways involved learning from others. My favorite analytical question soon became “Who?” rather than “How?” or “Why”. Eventually learning to build relationships with vendors became the best way to get what was needed on both sides of a negotiation. Understanding vendors’ relationships within their own organization helped alleviate undue aggravation and reduced miscommunication. My first aha moment as a new leader (and still a magnificent daily challenge) is what comes from just listening to others.

Taking an analytical approach to building relationships made it easier for me in some ways. But, like too much process thinking, it has sometimes kept human connection at a safe distance. I often got by using my analytical side to figure out how I respond to others and circumstances rather than in relationship together with them. Let’s be fair. The relationship business is messy and time-consuming. I’ve learned that can be OK, and how analysis is just one step of many to decluttering it. Working through problems, successes, new ideas, and ultimately changing with others creates bonds. As bonds suggest, I believe stronger relationships and work/life places result.

Thankfully, I can continue analyzing to my heart (or brain?)’s content with ACRLog and in my research. My analytical passion now focuses on seeking ways in which technical services can get beyond mere transactions to richer, more interpersonal communication and sense-making. It’s proven to be messy, challenging, and very worth it.

Feeling so fortunate for the opportunity to attend ACRL in Baltimore, especially to meet my fellow ACRLoggers face-to-face! With a plethora of conferences and development opportunities, it can be hard to justify attendance at a conference most people perceive as out of scope for a technical services librarian. In a technical service-focused session I attended, one librarian introduced herself by qualifying for the audience that her primary library association was ALCTS (Association of Library Collections and Technical Services). I too have found some excellent development resources in the ALCTS community and established some professional scholarship there. But I’ve never felt my particular brand of technical services quite fit here. This librarian’s certainty in her professional community had me pondering my ACRL conference experience and what sets it apart. [cue: David Byrne*]

How did I get here?
What is my conference?
Who is my community?

Most colleagues think I’m crazy, but I love ALA! The community and the conference. I love the size. I love the ability to experience perspectives from all different kinds of libraries and all different parts of a library. I love the chance to talk to vendors and (now, as a parent) the abundance of affordable souvenirs. As a librarian responsible for budget matters, though, the timing of this conference becomes problematic, as it usually falls during our fiscal close. So, although its provides good service opportunities, and the broadest professional network, this is not usually my conference.

NASIG (former acronym for North American Serials Interest Group) was probably the first specifically-focused professional community that really spoke my language. I could dive deeper into world of serials librarianship, vendors, and systems in order to solve real work problems. Similarly, as I became an e-resources librarian, ER&L was (and continues to be) one of my favorite professional communities for those same reasons. Besides the added perk of being in beautiful Austin, TX each year, it also offers that user experience focus I am always seeking as a bridge from technical to public services. Both these communities see themselves as part of something bigger, despite the specialized name and audience they tend to attract. Even so, the familiarity of a such specialized-focused conferences can at times be a crutch for broadening my perspective.

Hard as it may be to justify to my peeps here at home, I’m pretty sure my conference, my community is ACRL. I say that not just because I blog here, and it’s more than just because I work in an academic library. I do confess, it is in part resonant with Carla Hayden (ACRL Keynote and Librarian of Congress) declaring: “You all have the hippest conferences!”

ACRL Baltimore was only my second ACRL conference. I first feel in love with ACRL 2015 in Portland, realizing it has a similar and unmistakeable “part of something big” feel as ALA, but with a greater chance of running into people I actually know. I like ACRL because the language of research and academia is both familiar and challenging; the user focus I crave is meaningful and accessible; and I am often stretched in other areas, like leadership, political advocacy, and transforming shame into action. I think (also like ER&L) I appreciate how this community of librarians challenge the norm. As StevenB wrote of 2011’s conference, ACRL takes risks. Carla Hayden also recognized this, noting with appreciation that the conference was kept in Baltimore given all that was happening within this community.

ACRL librarians seem risk takers in their own right. They want to make a difference in what is otherwise perceived as an unchanging, institutionalized academia. This year’s call for proposals asked for representation from the technical services perspective, perhaps challenging the perception that ACRL is overly-focused on scholarly communication and instruction. Part of justifying my own attendance alongside all the other faculty who more obviously call this their conference their home means giving fresh eyes to how these issues matter in technical services and visa versa.

My strongest takeaways from this year’s conference were not scholarly community and instruction, but data analysis and visualization. Opening keynote speaker, David McCandless, provided interactive, fun, complex, and thought-provoking data visualizations. He explained why information is beautiful and also necessary at this particular time in our society. I was surprised that this beauty, even in the most concerning analyses, felt primarily (and strangely) soothing. That sense of calm resonates with McCandless’ assertion that visualizations allow you to simultaneously absorb and understand massive amounts of information, rather than become overwhelmed by it. McCandless spoke our language when illustrating how easy and accessible the starting point is to such complex beauty — it begins with questions. What do I want to know? What data might tell me about that? What can it reveal? Building on this keynote, I attended other sessions on communicating real value with data. More than just making pictures from data we are asked to collect, I saw how concerted, beautiful design in visualization allows us to ask new questions.

I found “my peeps” are the ones always asking and welcoming questions. ACRL allowed us to inquire a lot about equity and inclusion in our academic spaces. Sessions and speakers offered perspective on this from the lens of scholarly access, to how we meet diverse instruction needs, to how we understand biases in our own scholarship, to service to our patrons, and in our personal and professional relationships. Roxanne Gay, gave an amazing keynote and Q&A session to challenge my thinking on this. Others, especially (I worried about) those chastised by #acrl2017 twitter afterwards, will hopefully see that challenge themselves and remain open to keep seeking too.

De-centering oneself as a white person is a threshold concept I finally *got* in witnessing @rgay handle Q&A after #acrl2017 keynote.

While uncomfortable, sure, that chastising (and don’t miss this other recap too) demonstrates how the ACRL community challenges not just the institutional norm, but each other, individually. I just find that refreshing. It is a reminder that we definitely aren’t perfect, but we are always, mustalways be learning.

@rgay was new to me, but I’m in! Excuse me while I go read all the things. #acrl2017

We do honor and openly appreciate each other publicly as well! “Your peeps” was how final keynote speaker Carla Hayden acknowledged the various applause and shout-outs librarians received in the Q&A portion of her keynote. So refreshingly approachable and energizing, her keynote challenged me to be more aware, to remember to explore the “more to everyone’s story”. How she described the key factors motivating her to accept the position as Librarian of Congress reminded me of the necessity for transformation, while remaining true to ourselves and our service mission as librarians.

There is so much more to share from this conference — on technical services and public services interdependencies, on interlibrary loan and SciHub, and on important leadership and organizational management issues related to resilience, gender, and innovation. Watch for another post (either here or or on my own blog ) on these soon!

*Corrected misspelling with sincere apologies to the singer and his fans for the editorial slight.

The U.S. Presidential Inauguration is scheduled for tomorrow, and many organizations have planned programming, displays, and other ways to engage their communities in conversations around issues raised since the election and during the transition. At my college and university we’re still in our winter intersession — our Spring semester doesn’t begin until the end of the month — and we don’t have any events planned at my library, though I’m enjoying the Post-election Resource Guide zine that my CUNY colleagues at Hunter College Library put together. I found myself wondering what academic (and other) library folks are up to this week, and after a bit of research found a few library and library-adjacent events I thought I’d share.

While not specifically happening in academic libraries, the Writer’s Resist event last Saturday January 15th at the iconic 42nd street location of the New York Public Library felt near and dear to my librarian and academic heart. Sponsored by PEN America, a literary and human rights organization, this literary rally featured readings by prominent writers and a pledge by PEN members and participants to defend the First Amendment. There are terrific photos on Twitter — including gorgeous signage featuring author portraits and quotes — under the hashtag #LouderTogether. And closer to my college in Brooklyn, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library held a Pre-Inaguration Weekend Sign-Making Workshop last night. Brooklynites (and other local folks) of all political persuasions were invited to come to the library to use art supplies and button makers to exercise our First Amendment rights to free expression.

Many academic librarians are already back to the new semester this week and are planning programming in conjunction with inauguration-related events at their colleges or universities. At American University in Washington, D.C., Communication Librarian Derrick Jefferson participated yesterday in Teach, Organize, Engage: A Forum on Contemporary Politics and the Future. This full-day teach-in at the university was jointly sponsored by AU’s student, faculty, and staff governance bodies, and featured presentations about getting to the current moment in the U.S. as well as other domestic and international issues. The session Derrick presented — “Fact Checking and Communication in the ‘Post-Truth’ Era” — sounds like it was a great example of the critical information literacy expertise that academic librarians can bring to these conversations on campus, both formal and informal.

I also heard from John Jackson, Outreach & Communications Librarian, and Marie Kennedy, Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles about a half-day teach-in at their campus on Friday, the day of the inauguration. The LMU teach-in starts with a viewing of the inauguration and then breaks out into various smaller sessions, during which librarians will offer four sessions of a workshop on critically analyzing news sources called “Keepin’ It Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News.” The workshop will cover misleading news sources like misinformation, disinformation, click-bait, and propaganda, among others. I think holding this workshop right after the inauguration will provide students with a great opportunity to discuss any questions they have about speeches and media from the inauguration while it’s still fresh in their minds.

Is your library doing any programming or displays for the inauguration this week, or continuing to discuss the transition to the new administration in the future? Let us know in the comments.

For this week’s post, I had the unique opportunity to review a recently published white paper by Brian Mathews, associate dean at Virginia Tech Libraries and Jenizza Badua, interior design student at Virginia Tech entitled, Curating the Campus, Curating Change. This fascinating conceptual piece is based on a mixture of ideas, conversations, and some actual realities relating to physical learning spaces across college campuses.

Mathews’ responsibilities for facilities, space planning, and management, combined with a background in user experience, naturally inform his research in this area. While writing his book Encoding Space (also recently published), Mathews explores “the philosophy and texture of physical spaces and what they enable and inspire people to do”. Curating the Campus developed out of this research by taking those same concepts beyond the library.

“So when you apply things like design thinking and look at the campus as a system, you start to notice areas that could be improved. We have been so focused on improving our libraries, but these skills and insights we’ve been developing could apply elsewhere.”

The paper challenges readers to build their own new ideas on classroom buildings, research buildings, labs, studios, exhibits & displays, atriums & lobbies, living learning community, and incubators from the 8 vignettes offered. Below are some of the questions the piece brought to my mind that I posed to Mathews.

ACRLog: I recognized examples of these ideas occurring in reimagined spaces within the library, can you talk more about how you see this model differently?

Mathews: I think the Hunt Library Teaching and Visualization Lab at North Carolina State (NC State) gets to the point. They have established their expertise in this area. But, should they not just be contained within Hunt or Hill Libraries, they could extend service delivery — sort of in a franchise model. For example, maybe the focus is more on data visualization for the social sciences. Working with that College they develop a space and some adaptive service models. Then staff together go in with a designer and informaticist to support teaching and research for this discipline. I think a “phase one” would be looking at current spaces around campus to see how they could be improved. And the next level is service design and partnerships. When I visit buildings around campus I enter thinking “how could the library enhance what’s happening here.” That doesn’t mean setting up a reference desk. In the paper I tried to outline a few of the possibilities.

ACRLog: Where else can we see this is currently happening in academic institutions?

Mathews: Each campus has its own politics and geography. What works at one university might not work in another. So the point of the paper was to express a general ethos with the hope of sparking conversations. I tried to imagine the next five to ten years in the profession and it seems we will reach a point where we burst from beyond our buildings and start applying these ideas and principles in other locations. I think the Active Learning Center at Purdue provides somewhat of an example: a shared building between libraries and registrar. At Virginia Tech we are working on this concept within a new classroom building. I’m also a co-chair of a campus-wide task force looking at renovating lobby areas of academic buildings and developing a better mix of quiet and collaborative areas. But the paper isn’t really about spaces, it’s about partnerships. I used the word mash-ups—and that’s the creative challenge. It’s not just taking the library and putting it in Building X, but rather, working with Student Affairs and the Business School to develop an entirely new service or environment within a location that isn’t the library.

ACRLog: I’m intrigued by the significant role of partnership that comes up here, and you mention in the beginning of the piece the term interaction science. How do you see interaction science in this context? How is it changing the librarian profession?

Mathews: Interaction science to me is about how people work together. How they collaborate. How they cooperate. How they communicate. How they frame and explore problems. How they overcome differences. How they produce. Really — big picture — how they interact with each other and their environment. In the different stages of group work, it’s how they form and perform. In my library we study this. We want to learn from these interactions so we can improve our spaces and services. It’s the difference between offering a few tables and chairs and building a curated learning environment. The former is what I tend to see around campus buildings, whereas the latter is what librarians have been building. I think we can export our knowledge, particularly group commons areas, to other locations.

ACRLog: In addition to new opportunities, what problems are solved by decentralizing the programs, librarians, and spaces across campus buildings?

Mathews: Most of us don’t have a lot of free space in our buildings, [but] we would be able to offer emerging services elsewhere. I think we would be better able to integrate across campus rather than with a library-centered service perspective. I think it would open new partnerships and strengthen existing ones. I think it could provide better access to tools, resources, and expertise. I think it could help expand people’s thinking about what a libraries does or has to offer.

ACRLog: Yes, the idea (perceived or real) that our libraries are no longer filled with books, has in some cases, put pressure on libraries to re-imagine their own spaces for other campus purposes. Do you see this an opportunity for, or in opposition against what is proposed here? Or how does the role of the library building change in this new arena?

Mathews: I explore this a bit in my book. The problem I see is that many libraries are trying to do too many things. We want to accommodate digital humanities centers, visualization studios, maker spaces, quiet areas and collaborative areas, and collections, and on and on. There is a lot of pressure on our buildings. I love libraries being filled with books. I think the diffused approach helps us to push out services so that we can maintain collections or repurpose our space accordingly. But it starts by establishing expertise in this area. That’s what I really admire about NC State — their laser focus on learning environments. They have built a solid reputation and could probably advise and partner other units on their campus.I view libraries as prototyping environments. We can test emerging service designs and technologies, improve upon them, and then spin them out elsewhere on campus. I think that is an exciting possibility for our spaces. Our expertise is shaping environments, services, and resources for communities so we can serve as a testing ground for new ideas until they can move on.

Wrapping up our interview by phone, Mathews and I talked further about issues around partnership, like the geopolitics of space and the important role a supportive University administration plays. The fun things about a piece like this is the way it generates new ideas and connections. It’s a conversation-starter. And it seems that reality underlies the whole premise of these spaces – to foster imagination and partnerships that are not just intentional and deliberate, but also spontaneous. You don’t know what you don’t know, which is my favorite opportunistic problem!